He discarded the pen and went over to the table where Lucifer lay, half-formed in clay waiting for da Vinci to unravel secrets of the threads that bind flesh and soul. The secret, if ever solved, would elevate man from the level of creation to creator. It would—HE would—make men into Gods.
It wasn’t merely ego, he thought, looking at the perfect lines of Lucifer’s face.
It surpassed that. It truly was genius.
Leonardo let his hands gentle over the anatomical perfection of his creation. The clay felt like dead flesh beneath his touch, so exact was the illusion. Lucifer’s body had been constructed around a metal frame that was precisely jointed, just like the countless skeletons he had examined by whickering candlelight come darkness.
The apprentices were downstairs now, laboring over the individual parts that would come together to create the whole, a perfect replica of da Vinci’s own hands, to prepare Lucifer for his last and most precious gift: life.
They hadn’t the slightest comprehension of what it was their insignificant nuts and bolts of alloyed metal would combine to become, but they would, if Lorenzo The Magnificent could not be swayed from his intended public display of da Vinci’s clockwork man. The man was a fool but he was a fool with influence and power and enough sycophants orbiting him to make him believe he truly was magnificent and not merely another tyrant eager to inflict pain and suffering on whosoever threatened to tarnish his pretended magnificence. Leonardo harbored no illusions. If his clockwork man failed to prance and dance like some overblown marionette Lorenzo Medici would exert every ounce of his ‘magnificence’ to ensure that da Vinci’s body would take on the warmth and texture of Lucifer’s pseudo-flesh as it sank, weighted down, to the bottom of the harbor.
“What am I to do?” he asked Lucifer’s empty shell.
The fragrance of vanilla, out of place in the workshop, was the first hint that he was not alone.
“Who you are dictates what you should do.” Da Vinci turned to face the newcomer. “Who are you? Painter; Sculptor; Maker of Men; Architect; Bringer of War; Musician; Engineer; Inventor or Scientist?”
The scent of vanilla flared as though in response to the passion driving the newcomer’s words.
“I am all of those, and none of them.” He reasoned, shielding his eyes as the creature came into full and beautiful view. It hurt to look at. Pure white light blazed off it. Light so fierce it was almost impossible to see behind it to the creature with its wings of fire, each feather a miracle of perfection, so different from the last, in all of its naked glory. It was beautiful but not in the way that the romantic artists imagined. The creature’s beauty was savage. “And either I am truly insane, or you, you are an angel of the Lord.”
“Michael,” the creature said.
He carried no sword, yet all the Church talk of Archangel Michael was as God’s sword.
“Have you come down to kill me?”
“Do you deserve to die?”
“How can I answer that? I have sinned, more than most, truth be told, but do I judge myself as worthy of death? No, I do not.”
“Then I shall not kill you.”
“Why are you here? Are you even here? Is it all my thoughts of divinity that have driven my mind feverish enough to conjure angels out of the ether?”
“I am here because Elohim bade me …” the word seemed to stick in the divine one’s craw. “Beg you to give up your folly with this, this creature.” It looked distastefully at the stillborn sculpture of Lucifer. “And give up all dreams of creation. He would have you work with the miracles He gave mankind, not try to breathe life into your toys. Even if you succeed, if you animate that thing—”
“He is called Lucifer.”
“And you think that is amusing, no doubt? Even if you animate your devil it will not be a man, it will be soulless, a golem. A thing of flesh without a soul. Where God’s love should suffuse it with life there will be only emptiness.”
The angel’s words echoed his own writing from just moments before. Emptiness. The absence of the divine. Hell. What this messenger was telling him was that even if he did breathe life into his creation, Lucifer would be a living Hell, not his masterpiece.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yes you do. The artist in you believes me. It knows the beauty of the soul. The painter and the sculptor believe me. They have seen that beauty in every living thing. They have recorded that beauty on canvas and in clay. Even the scientist believes me, despite being desperate not to. It has no empirical evidence of a life existing outside of God’s care. It is conditioned to believe in numbers, in quantifiable results, therefore based on the evidence of its own eyes, even the scientist in you believes me.”
“And if I don’t stop?”
“Then you will have made nothing more than a companion for my lost brethren in Hell. A new Bright One, as far from God’s love as the first.”
Da Vinci realized he was standing over Lucifer’s clay form, a hand placed where its heart would have been had it had one, with almost fatherly propriety.
“Give it up.”
But of course, he couldn’t.
Creation was an addiction. The Archangel fed the hunger in him. The craving for power. To understand. To go beyond understanding.
“If you must create life, follow the cattle down there, procreate. God did give you the power to create life—”
“But it is not good enough! It is on His terms. Find a partner, make the beast with two backs, and if you are lucky, very lucky, you might, just might, conceive. It is not good enough.” His voice had risen almost to the level of a shout, but the angel had already left, its tears solidifying to multi-faceted multi-hued glass, where they struck the floor, each of the tears resonating with an increasingly more desperate note. The chorus of tears was desolate to hear.
Alone, da Vinci stared at his creation lying there lifelessly. All he could think was that he was doing something right. God himself had sent his sword down because he was frightened.
It would take time but he would give Lorenzo Medici his clockwork man.
It was the most amazing feeling, to know that He Who Doth Create, Knower Of All, was afraid—the feeling faded as fleetingly as it had appeared. He knew. God Knew. Whatever da Vinci could do with Lucifer it was because He allowed it.
“What kind of toy am I?” he asked, but it was a rhetorical question.
Over the coming days and weeks Leonardo da Vinci labored, outlining the mechanisms of Lucifer, for every joint and cog for his creation to be capable of independent movement. The process of building was no mean feat of engineering, every tooth on every gear and cog required custom grinding and cutting to ensure they bit and held when turned. For Lucifer’s knees and elbows he adopted a simple ball-in-cup arrangement to give the illusion of fluidity but the crowning glory was the contraption that would act as Lucifer’s heart, the pump that would act as a battery once Lucifer was in motion, capturing kinetic energy generated by the rhythmic metronomes that were the clockwork man’s arms and legs.
Once it started moving it would never need to stop or rest. Da Vinci’s clockwork man would be an untiring giant with the strength of iron and the stamina of a legion of bulls.
During the creation da Vinci seldom slept. Fatigue ate at him but he was determined to see his efforts bear fruit. He drove himself to the limits of human tolerance and way, way beyond. Like God, on the seventh day, he rested. Lucifer was by no means complete but what was lacking was merely the aesthetics, the mechanics were in place.
He had two visitors that day, the first, Lorenzo Medici, and the second, holiest of holies, the divine Archangel Michael come to beg, bully and finally plead.
Lorenzo Medici carried himself like a vulture, his hooked nose sniffing out carrion, his eyes roving, never settling in one place and his hands flexing, clasping, coiling. The sight of the mechanical man appeared to put him genuinely at ease, which was a rare occurrence in Da Vinci’s experience, but then he had anticipated as much
when he began to shape Lucifer. Who could be at ease around a thing like that? Lucifer was truly beautiful and more worthy of life than so many of God’s creatures, who, next to the Bright One, were pale, pale shadows.
Still, the effect the cold clay had on Medici was unnerving.
“Will it live?” he asked in hushed, almost reverential tones, as though Cosimo’s tower had been transformed into some temple, a holy place. Given what was going on inside, perhaps it had.
“Oh yes, the Devil will walk among us,” da Vinci answered the tyrant.
“Good … good …” then: “When?” and there was desperation in his voice. Need. The fire of hunger burned in Medici’s poisonous eyes. This promised unimaginable wealth. Forget base metal transmogrification, the clay and clockwork man on the table verged on the territory of miracles. People would pay to witness its birth.
“A month, perhaps a year? Whenever …”
“No! I will have him brought to life! Now … I know just the place … San Lorenzo.” A vindictive smile played across the tyrant’s lips. Some faces were not meant for smiling. “Five nights from now.”
“But San Lorenzo is a church—I was assuming that Lucifer’s birth would take place somewhere less … holy. A theatre perhaps?”
“No, San Lorenzo is perfect for what I have in mind, believe me. Now, my Florentine god, are you suffering doubts? Frightened that the Lord might not look too kindly upon your foray into His territory? Do this, Da Vinci, do something truly worthy with your life. No more silly weapons,” and the way he said it made a cold shiver writhe down the vertebrae of da Vinci’s back as a new use for his Lucifer and his kind occurred to him. At last he understood the hunger in Medici’s eyes. “And city walls. Think on it. You have in your hands the wherewithal to create life, man.”
Suddenly the steady stream of donations to da Vinci’s coffers made sense. His sponsor was not some benevolent benefactor. His interest was far from altruistic. Medici stood to gain the world from the clockwork man.
This understanding should have given da Vinci the strength to turn back, to destroy his sketches and burn Lucifer or reshape him into a hundred harmless pots, but he knew that he couldn’t. He wanted to see the clockwork man take his first step. He needed to know that he could create life not merely mimic it.
“Leave me alone, Lorenzo.”
Surprisingly, Medici left without a word.
Da Vinci’s second visitor was no less predatory, no less dangerous, but the angel did, at least, fight for what he believed to be right—the glory of God, not the glory of the Medici’s family name.
Again, it was the faint trace of vanilla in the air that gave the heavenly creature’s presence away.
“Think about what it is you are doing,” the angel said without waiting for da Vinci to acknowledge his presence. “Make a man, a golem without a soul, make him live and breathe, what does it prove?”
“That we no longer need Him,” da Vinci voiced the fear that had been gnawing away at him for months. What would happen then, if God became unnecessary?”
“And a world without God is a good thing in your eyes? Who are you to decide for mankind if they should down their backs on their Father? Think, Scientist, Artist, Sculptor, Fool, what would be the consequence of a Godless world?”
Da Vinci stared hard at the angel, so hard it hurt, the white light searing into his eyeballs, stripping away whatever veil ego and vanity had shrouded them with.
“How does God give you life?” the angel pressed. “You profess to be a clever man: think!”
“The mechanics are known to me, I have studied them.” Da Vinci began, knowing it was not what Michael was looking for.
“Not mechanics! God is spiritual. His creations are spiritual. His greatest gift to them is their—”
“Soul,” da Vinci finished for the angel.
“And without a soul.”
“There can be no heaven.”
“Very good, Scientist, perhaps you can claim the skills of philosopher, too. Without a soul there can be no heaven. Can you comprehend the magnitude of your actions?”
The Archangel turned his back and left him alone in the tower with Lucifer.
Alone.
Gazing at the beautiful face he had shaped with his own bare hands, da Vinci was able to convince himself that the angel was lying to him—or rather following his own agenda and only telling part of the truth. God’s vanity was at risk. His immortal pride. They were trying to scare him away from the completion of his masterpiece. A creation of greater beauty and usefulness than any mere painting or sculpture.
“It will not happen,” he promised Lucifer, wetting his fingers to refine yet again the clockwork man’s features.
Five more nights Michael visited the workshop in the Cosimo tower and yet even his most impassioned arguments could not reach da Vinci.
“Do you think it is an accident that your thing is called Lucifer? Can you not sense the presence of the Prince of Lies in everything that you do? You are being used and manipulated by the minions of Hell. You are a fool to think otherwise.”
Was Satan’s hand directing his own? Was he just a puppet birthing a clockwork Antichrist, that would stride the earth reveling in Medici’s endless wars? Was he a fool? For that question at least, he began to suspect the answer was yes.
The Archangel’s final solution was the sword.
“I challenge you, da Vinci, you and your satanic mechanical thing—a duel. To the death. My immortal soul against the vacuum of his nothingness. Win and you get what you want, lose and we will take the pieces of your damnable Lucifer to God Himself so that he might unmake the monstrosity, and you will forget forever your vanities of creation.”
And Medici was right, they came in their droves to witness the spectacle of da Vinci’s clockwork man coming to life to duel the angel of the Lord, God’s sword an eternal blackness blazing in his clenched fist. San Lorenzo was packed suffocatingly full of spectators, every one of Lorenzo and Guillermo Medici’s boot-lickers, toadies and hangers-on crowded in to the Medici chapel.
A stage had been erected and the altar removed, so that the scene might unfold beneath the crucifix and the wounded Jesus, and upon the stage two finely crafted bell jars stood, one on either side of the crucifix. Michael had demanded that. They were empty, or so they appeared. One, the Archangel promised, would contain his own angelic essence, his angelus. The other he would fill with da Vinci’s immortal soul. If the clockwork man won Michael’s angelus would simply cease to be. The Archangel would fall from grace. If da Vinci’s monster was defeated by the angel, then Michael would take the would-be creator’s creation and leave him, soul still intact, in the bell jar, a fragile reminder of how close he had come to losing everything.
The inside of the church was cold.
The pilgrims had been locked out. Only Medici’s chosen ones made it through the ranks of armored soldiers blocking the Church doors. It took over four hours for the lucky ones to find their seats and longer still for the galleries and aisles to fill. Over fifteen thousand Florentines crammed into the San Lorenzo to witness da Vinci’s genius.
Da Vinci moved into the centre of the stage, awed by all of the upturned faces so intently focused on him. “Behold, Lucifer!” he roared, his voice filling the highest eaves and the lowest ducts. Two of Medici’s hired thugs dragged the lifeless golem out to join da Vinci on centre stage. “And the Angel!” He threw back his head, arms open wide, aping the crucifixion pose of the son of God behind him.
A reverential hush descended over the congregation. No one quite knew what to make of the revelation. Was it a joke? Some grand elaborate hoax engineered by the Medici’s to show them all how gullible they were? Or were they actually in the presence of the divine?
Michael’s light blazed as he strode across the wooden stage. Wisps of smoke rose from the smoldering timbers as feet scorched them. This time he carried the sword of God. It was a single sliver of darkness in the heart of white light that suffused his b
ody. The sword that stole souls in the name of Elohim, Lord God. It sang in his hands, a slowly building thrum, drawing to it all the power of heaven and earth. The air crackled with lines of power. A sharp crack echoed through the roof of the chapel. Blue lines and sparks chased down the walls of the narthex and through the floor of the Medici chapel.
From his vantage on centre stage da Vinci saw the traces of power encase the room. The hair of the congregation rose, standing on end, brought to life by the soul-sucking power of God’s sword. The greatest transformation though was taking place on the stage itself where in their urgency to reach the Archangel and his harmonic blade the blue lines of force were surging through the twitching form of Lucifer. The Brightest One was being born from the energy of nature. The lightning strike that had hit the roof of the San Lorenzo church at the summons of Michael’s sword was the catalyst that da Vinci had been missing. The irony, even amidst the glory of this inhuman birth, was not lost on him. Even in this, his moment, God had to meddle.
He was livid. He railed at the heavens, challenging Elohim to do his worst or prepare to be vanquished from the mortal realm. Echoes of laughter filled his ears.
Michael leveled the sword, swinging it in a wild overhead arc.
Da Vinci helped Lucifer stand. His creation’s legs were unsteady, but he was alive and as he began to move he began to learn. And Lucifer learned quickly. He looked at his creator and assayed a mocking bow, and then turned to the Archangel and repeated his action, bowing lower than he had to da Vinci.
“Now witness the battle!” Lorenzo Medici roared from the front row, leaping to his feet.
Sickness began to spread through him as he saw the resolute determination of his creation. For all of his glories, the angel did not stand a chance against the clockwork Lucifer. With no weaknesses, nothing to hurt, the clockwork man simply kept on coming, the tempered alloy of its limbs blocking and parrying the angel’s soul-sucking sword. With no soul to lose, the blade was useless against Lucifer.
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